UPDATE! New Small Business Triangulation Scam | What They Did To My Shop & How To Protect Yourself!
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- I have an update! In today's video, I talk about a new small business triangulation scam. I explain what they did to my shop and tips on how to protect yourself shopping and selling online.
This is an update video to yesterdays video: • New Small Business Sca...
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Man, if these scammers just put in that much effort into honest work, they’d do just fine without ruining other peoples lives.
Right!!!!
Totally!
No Kidding! Seems like a lot of work!! (just like owning an honest Etsy shop!! Sheesh)
They could be rich if they put their efforts into protecting others against scams! Since they know the ends and outs of scamming!
i guess they get a kick out of bad deeds….
This is really good info and thank you for putting it out for Etsy sellers to see.
Now, . . . here's the part that gets me. Etsy can watch millions of sellers and ban them for the slightest infraction. What are they doing to search for scammers and protect their customers?
Aparently NOTHING! Sally have done most of the work! 🤷
This is a good point because I had a shop opened for years with no issues. When I opened a second shop (following all of the rules on Etsy including disclosing both shops in my profiles) that shop was suspended automatically within a day or two of opening. They reopened it after I emailed them but it makes me wonder how these scammers are able to do this when established sellers like myself are caught in the auto-suspensions.
Just like ebay…the buyer is favored over the seller 😢 I appreciate these videos because I just opened my etsy shop, but everyone should have a vested interest because we all pay for the cheaters!
It's complaint-driven. If a seller is running a scam, the customers will complain, and that's a lot of complaints. If a seller GETS scammed, on the other hand, that's just one complaint... and the small number of complaints never pops any of the red flags.
Just another reason to avoid Etsy!@@cdarklock
I've had this happen to my shop also many times and I can attest that there are many scammers out there doing this! I believe it is a larger organized crime type of thing that is like cancer within the platforms! They should be stopped!!
I think you are absolutely right about this being part of large organized rings, which unfortunately is why it is so hard to catch them. The sheer volume makes it impossible to stay ahead of them. Whatever the punishment is for these scammers, it needs to be much harsher because it is clearly not a deterrent.
What can we do to stop this it keeps happening to me
@misterelephant3202 If you're not being reimbursed by etsy, sue them. Turn it into a class action if it seems to be a problem.
This is a problem for the marketplace, not the seller on it. If the scammer is using the marketplace to scam you then the marketplace bears the legal responsibility to provide security. The seller has no ability to do so and is left wide open for scams if the marketplace doesn't have strong protections from it. Meaning the marketplace is creating a welcome environment for thiefs. A lawyer would love to bring this before a judge.
Organized Retail Criminals. I call them ORCs.
A friend of mine has an Etsy shop where she sold Monster High doll clothing back when they first came out. Someone would purchase her stuff, then claim "they fell apart." She would only refund them if they returned the damaged product. They were all seam ripped. Buyer was stealing the patterns to sell as her own.
Chinese people do this all the time. Chinese love copying and doing counterfeit stuff
This is a good. We should define these guys and label them more specific than just as "scam"... Might bring more attention to it directly and get whatever entities needed investing resources into better protections against these "ORCs"!
@@SnakeEater503 😉
I just had a luxury product sold on Poshmark for 80% off retail out of box with tags on. The person who received claimed I sold a fake (their comments: not real item, fake leather smelled plasticky, claimed had a puffy area, not stamped interior). Their photos of proof were not what I sent. I gave Poshmark my photos at shipping. I anticipate what I get back will not be what I sold. I plan to file report with Poshmark (this idiot a first time buyer, me selling four years excellent stats) and US Postal Services as fraud. Committing fraud using US Mail is asking for trouble. US postal inspectors don't play. We all need to stay aware and trust yourself. If you feel weird or off about a sale trust yourself. Scammers are out there. Most of them looking for sellers not paying attention or overly trusting. Some jealous online resellers will also cause drama, have your listings deleted, do online reputation destruction. Trust yourself. Never feel pressured to say yes immediately always take time to think about it. It is hard enough when Google tells buyer what your item is worth - below what you even paid for it!
Any channel and personality that uses their platform to help teach others about these type of events and what the possible routes to prevent them could be. Is an automatic subscribe and watch to me. Thanks for the work on this!
Another social account that I follow does a daily image search to see if anyone else is using her product photos. That might help identify the scammers.
I started doing this too! Trying to get on top of things!
How do you do that
Yeah. How do you do that?
@@rosateresacastro-vargas8592 copy your photo and paste into a google image search.
Wow, I had no idea I might have been caught in between this scam until this video. I once had bought some stickers on etsy, got it shipped to me, was very happy. Then after a couple of weeks, I wanted to buy some more for my friends, went back to the store that I bookmarked, and for some reason, the entire store was deleted without a trace. So I contintued to search, and eventually did find the exact same listing. where everything looked identical, but was under a slightly different store name with the only noticeable difference being the price being marginally higher price of a couple of bucks. It's not that the store was restored after being suspended (because I had it bookmarked with same URL), but that it was a whole seperate store that looked 99.99% identical. After this video...I now wonder how prevelant this sort of scam it is.
That’s crazy isn’t it! I think it happens more than we might realize.
@TeaBurn - Were you able to notify the real seller or Etsy?
@@MossyMozart No, unfortunately. This was a long time ago and I don't even remember the store name anymore. Even if I did, I wouldn't have been able to tell if the store that I found was even the original in the first place.
Bless your heart, you didn't deserve any of this to happen to you. Thank you for sharing because I know I've seen listings for items identical to things I've looked at for a greatly reduced price. I'll definitely be paying closer attention from now on.
Thanks so much- it will be ok!! I just definitely want to bring awareness to other shops and buyers who may be going through it. Thank you for watching 💕
Why is Etsy not verifying people's identity? 😒 They should require you to take a picture next to your photo ID like other platforms do.
How terrible! I’ve heard about this but had no idea how big of an issue this is! So sorry this happened to you! Great job catching on to them!
Such a pain. At some point, we are going to have to agree as a society to stop tolerating these criminals.
good luck. the world has run on it for millennia.
Unfortunately where I live even BIG time fraudsters get a literal slap on the wrist. Many times if a percentage of the funds stolen is returned they get even less of a sentence. Moral of the story, if you’re a fraudster put aside some of your ill-gotten gains in the event you are ever charged.
And again, this has been the story for millennia. Nothing said is new. Just new people who've never experienced it before. This is not specific to any country or any time that has been or the present. It's always been. But you explain it as if just learned of it today. @@goilo888
Wow, hate that you had to go through this especially so close to the holidays. It’s sad there are people that will take that much time to scam an honest person out of their hard earned money! You go girl! There’s no telling how many people this has happened too who had no idea what was going on thank you for taking the time to look into it and figure out what is going on to warn anyone else who may have been victim to this! Hope the platform can catch them so they can face some kind of consequence.
I'm glad you figured this out and posted a video because I got to share it with a friend that has an Etsy shop. You might have saved her a headache 💕
Sallie, thanks for all the hard work you have done to research this. I'm a want-to-be maker and am interested in being an Etsy seller, so this info is very timely for me. I'm concerned about Etsy's business practices...for what you have described here and for all the CZcams videos I see of Etsy sellers having their shops shut down with (apparently) no warning and then with (apparently) no responsive communication from Etsy regarding the closures.
Thank you for this info, Im working on opening my shop and this is scary! I hate scam artists 😠
Don’t be worried- this could happen anywhere and it’s unlikely to happen to everyone! Good luck opening your shop, you’re gonna do great!
So basically we are talking of a form of money laundering: The stolen CC gets charged on Etsy for YOUR product, so the traces would lead to you. The scammer takes the money from the "good" CC (the buyers), who will not file a complaint or suspect anything criminal going on. Iirc, this amounts to a federal offense in the US. It may be prudent to inform the FBI.
In the UK the only way to challenge a chargeback (on eBay at least) is to have proof of delivery. If the delivery address is the same as what's on the invoice and it shows as delivered you are covered (by eBay). I haven't had a charge back for at least a couple years now so it might have changed. So the only help I can give is use tracking. There are so many scams from buyers and sellers you just have to do your best. Luckily our items are low value so not really worth scamming over. The other problem for the seller is that there is usually a fee to pay to eBay for them having to deal with it which used to be £15. so not only are you conned out of the money there is a fee as well if you can't prove your case.
What about Etsy's "Payment Reserve"? The first 45 days that a shop is open the seller only gets "paid" for 25% of the order total (Etsy holds the other 75%). This was a MAJOR inconvenience for me in the beginning as I didn't even have enough for materials and shipping. So I'm not understanding how they're managing to pull it off with this?!
I'm so sorry Sallie!
I have no idea how they are doing it, but somehow or someway they are getting something out of it unfortunately!
Do they also have payment information from the buyer to use later?
For the moment this looks baffling. If scammer is listing the exact same products @ lower price then fulfilling that sale by buying from the real seller @ higher price, then how is this profitable? -unless they're after "info" that these transactions could bring forth.
@@aweoak7763 Yeh that's what I'm not getting, where is the profit for them in this scam? Seems like a lot of effort for very little reward, just wondering if this is more just somebody harrassing the seller and where are Etsy's safeguards against this bad behaviour?
If only these scammers turned their ingenuity to actually making an honest living, they'd be great successes
This is why socialism never works.
This happened to me buying from Walmart online. Didn’t realize it was another seller. I caught it when it said my product was delivered and the location delivered was a random location in another state. When looking further i to the seller the shop name was random and made up. Walmart refunded my money thank god.
😮 that’s so annoying! I’m glad you were able to figure out what was happening.
That’s why people that are looking to buy need to look into the account or website they are wanting to buy from before putting in their info to purchase! For me if I see no reviews or a few sketchy reviews , hardly little to no description of buisiness details etc, I don’t bother and I leave.
Sounds like Etsy needs to step up. Its security. Seems like removing the buy now function would be a first step. Considering how much Etsy charges for shipping to make a huge pay they should be protecting everyone properly. Etsy can require buyers to be verified before being allowed to make purchases and verify their identity by using their ID properly. Also sellers should be verified by ID. So that way if a seller like the scammer tries to set up shop in this triangle scam they wouldn’t be able to set up multiple shops under the same ID, they would burn out their ID. And that would cut them off as a seller and buyer. Sounds harsh it its needed. Etsy could figure this out and stop it but they are choosing not to it seems for it to be continuing. I heard of this scam a couple months ago from somewhere and they too reported it. I thought this would have been a new scam going around but nope same one.
From talking with phone scammers, they are narcissists to the core, colder and more evil than the vast majority of movie villains. They will rob someone’s life savings and, then, play victims if they are denied another successful scam or get hacked in return.
Thanks so much for talking about this. You mention you can tell now when the order is a scam. I hope you’ll talk about how you know and what the clues are in a future video for the sake of other sellers.
thank you for this info. I buy on etsy all the time. I always check first and really question when the item is super cheap. I look at where the seller is located. When there is no info I do not buy.
Sally, you showed up in my YT feed. I think that you also have to alert the authorities in your area, especially the Better Business Bureau. They help honest business people, such as yourself, but alert others about scams. Good luck to you. May the New Year lift you from the burden of scammers!
Great video, thank you for posting! I am thinking about opening an Etsy Shop, I have in the past only done "art/craft shows" but most of these are outside venues and I am tired of dealing with rain, wind and bad weekends that bring little customers in. And at 63, I am tired of hauling my art around, so now I am in the researching stage and watching all these videos and saw yours. I am sorry this happened, but so glad to hear that you figured it out, it just boggles the mind thinking about all the effort in doing this when that brainpower and time could be used to help others or find the cure for cancer. Here's hoping you will no longer have this issue.
As someone who runs a maker based business (not on Etsy) it's a really shame people who work hard and provide great products get caught up in this kind of crap. I know how hard it is to build a good relationship and honestly losing your rating is worse than being scammed out of a few bucks.
As far as the scammer goes... they could probably start a legit business for the amount of effort it sounds like this requires. It's just a shame all around!!
There are people who revel in harming others.
Thank you for sharing and informing the rest of us. Much appreciated.
Holy sh*t!! That's diabolical! Glad you figured it out.
Bunch of scum bags. Sorry this happened to you Sallie - sounds like a headache and very stressful trying to figure it out. Hope they get caught. Thank you for educating us and pray this will stop. You’re such a wonderful person - hate some jerks did this to you. Hugs to you ❤
How could that be what they're doing? No one can see your credit card information? What I think is happening is that the person who bought all that stuff who wants their money back and the person who is ordering on all those different accounts is one in the same person. They got your product, they want their money back from you, and they can call the bank and dispute for a chargeback from the bank. But yeah if anyone orders more than two separate orders email them and just ask them did they make a mistake or is this a legit order in the future and unfortunately you going to have to block that person whether they're innocent or guilty
Yes it seems more like a chargeback scam where they want to keep the product for free.
This happened to me about 20 times this holiday season.
Ugh I’m so sorry! It’s really frustrating!
Great research and recap. Thanks for sharing your findings.
You go girl!
This happened to me in my shop as well! So glad you figured it out.
She didn't. This isn't Triangulation Fraud.
@@loganq what is it?
@@galaxia4709 I know it's not Triangulation Fraud because that involves sending the product to the different customers who ordered things, and Sallie says she sent all the packages to the same address.
Does Etsy not put a hold on funds received by a new seller? Also, surprising that they aren't scanning new product listings to see if they match other seller listings. I'm a software developer who works in the scam detection industry, and this is not a hard problem to solve.
I’m sorry Sallie, but thank you for letting us know and explain.
When Etsy contacted you about why you canceled, how did you explain to them? I'm assuming you had a case number of the previous communications, and could point to them? Not everyone employed by Etsy is aware of this scam, and sometimes internally the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. So, what's your advice from protecting yourself from Etsy?
That information is in the first video mentioned at the start of this one.
So…the actual buyer ends up getting a seriously discounted item that they wanted from the shop they imagined it came from, I’m thinking that wouldn’t bother perhaps some buyers…maybe? I don’t know if having the buyers policing this sort of a scam will really work out in the best interest of the sellers. Actually the whole thing makes my head spin. Thanks for giving us the scoop.
Crazy! Ive had scam shops stealing and selling my digital files on Etsy for years but never seen anything like that.
I am so sorry that happened to you and your company and I pray that they get caught soon. Amen
I was selling rag dolls and someone stole my photo of one and put on a toy website they had also put one on Etsy, which I reported but they said nothing they could do. Nothing ever happened don't know what kind of scam they had going on the other website but really sad this happens.
They said they couldn't do anything??
My word this is awful. I am so sorry for you. You’ve handled this so well.
I have heard of a variation on this scam that collects the numbers. They do the same as the original scam at the same or higher price on different platforms from the actual seller and collect the information on the buyer. They do this for a few items then close down the site with a list of " valid " credit card numbers and full information on use. It helps to do a google image search for your products periodically to see if they are showing up as being sold by someone else or a platform you are not associated with, including Facebooks market place.
These larger companies need to make a way this doesn’t happen.
Scammers can get too much information about you and your sales way too easily. All companies need to do more to protect sellers.
Charge backs are a nightmare!! I’m a Screen Printer and Custom T shirt designer local and I get these scammers all the time. They usually make high quantity or high price orders then use the fraudulent credit cards or create a fake entity like a church, school , etc and tries to pay with a fraudulent ACH/Wire or check. I usually check the phone numbers to see if they are using a voip setup and they always ask what type of payments do you accept? Which is weird in this era. All cards are now accepted but if you are in a remote country you might not know.
these scammers are so craft now, thank you for sharing ❤❤❤
Thank you for taking the time to share this to us all....
you would think these scammers would use their creativity to create their own shop instead of stealing smh
I'm an Etsy seller. What I don't get is how the customer doesn't know. The scammer sets up a "fake" Etsy account but they can't duplicate your shop name. They have to come up with a name that's never been used. So the customer will get the item they ordered but from a different shop name. Who wouldn't notice that? Not sure how they can get away with that???
How can the credit card go through? This is the fake credit card if Etsy or whomever has the right security in place? The credit card company used should be sending out a two factor authorization to a cell number or an email of the credit card holder. Etsy should make that a strict rule don’t you think?
In the last video she said the orders were all shipped to the same address. If this were actually Triangulation Fraud the signs would have been shipped to different addresses.
Thank you for sharing!! This is good to know as an Etsy seller myself!
Also, you said you cancel the scammer's orders as soon as you see them. How will we know if this happens to us since they use different names? This really sucks. Makes me worry.
I hope Etsy finds a way to stop this and protect their sellers.
They are supposed to cover all disputes and fraud due to their seller protection! So hopefully all gets taken care of! ❤️ really the best thing to do is just ship orders as normal and if you see a suspicious order that keeps coming in, then take action!
@SimplySallie Ok. I will. Thanks. I really appreciate you. I imagine that running your shop and making these great videos to help others takes a lot of time and effort. Blessings to you!
This is so overwhelming to me! How do you know it's a scammer and not actual customers placing the order? If it's a popular item? I'm just a little new to all this.
Etsy obviously isn't doing enough and covering their eyes. Obviously no verification on the account setup. Wouldn't be too hard to compare stolen images on these new shops either.
Exactly. And she is overdoing it with her protective speech of Etsy
It sounds like an identity theft chargeback. The scammer uses a stolen credit card to fulfill an order. When the stolen card owner disputes the purchase, the seller (not the scammer) pays the stolen card owner back, correct? So, how can you know if a stolen credit card is being used to purchase from your shop?
Thanks for this information, it's good to be aware! ♥️
I just got a scam where the usps said i had a package delivered. There was no package in my mailbox. I did not order anything.
Now i have to file a claim.
This is awful. Thanks for sharing the information.
Shouldn't you be able to tell if the name on the stolen credit card doesn't match with the name of the person you are shipping to?
Is it possible to reach out to Etsy and make Etsy cancel the sale instead of you canceling it? I wonder if canceling a lot of orders somehow affects your account health; I know it does on Amazon.
I have asked them to remove the orders. I really hope they do! 🤞
Thanks. This helped me. Similar problem on Shopify.
Should ask if buyer is using Temu!!
Wow.... I just watched your first vid. This happened to me. Makes sense. Mine was an Etsy pick ornament. 😳
Great info. A lot of Etsy sellers that are legit don’t have social media accounts. I would personalize all of your products. They would have no use for that.
My products are all personalized- so they are utilizing this scam to get me to send the customized product to their buyer while pocketing the money. Or trying to ruin my seo since I’m having to cancel all these orders. Not sure but it’s frustrating!
Ebay has the seller protection program which means the seller isnt hit with chargebacks from scams like this.
How can you tell if the site is legit or fake? I’m sorry this happened to you. I one day would love to start an online business. These are the things people don’t talking about. Thank you.
Thanks for the great video. Hope they get caught
Great information Thankyou
I watched this video twice and still have no idea what you are talking about. If these sellers are fake and people are buying from a fake account, how does this go back to you? Yes, they have your sign or your version of yoursign, but it was placed under another seller. I am really confused about how that connects to you at all.
I'm an etsy seller, so I really want to understand how this is going on so I can protect myself. I've had a couple of people already try to ask me to do some shady things.
Google triangulation scam.
-Scammer makes fake Etsy shop duplicating a real etsys listing.
-innocent Buyer purchases item from the fake Etsy shop
-scam shop gets the money from the sale and puts it in their actual bank account
-opens up additional fake Etsy accounts and puts stolen credit cards on these accounts to purchase the actual item from me
-scammer puts their buyers name and address on the new order to me.
- I get the sale, and ship the sign to the innocent buyer
-buyer doesn’t know what happened, because they get the sign they thought they purchased originally so nobody gets alerted.
- credit card purchase gets disputed from fake accounts, so I lose money (or Etsy)
-scammer deletes the Etsy accounts after sales completed and probably does it again and again or until they get caught.
They make the money through the original sale of these items. Sometimes don’t get caught so they keep the money. They probably are doing it to hundreds if not thousands of other shops.
It’s much harder to be allowed to sell on Amazon than other sites platforms
Thank you for the update.
So glad for your diligence, as a targeted individule, they do tbe same thing with total human lives.
What does the scammer get out of this? Are they just out to get you and the owner of the stolen credit card? It doesn't sound like they're getting any benefit here.
Wait… are you saying the solution is to: 1) Educate buyers and 2) Preemptively cancel suspected illegitimate orders… orders that might be legitimate but also might not be legitimate? Ummm… more needs to be done by Platform. Also… what incentive does the platform have to change anything? Why should the platform care that you have cancelled transactions negatively impacting your shop!?
A sale should only be a sale if the money is transferred, so that they can't use fake CCs
On the last video you stated all of your stuff was going to the same address. But on this video you stated they were sending your items directly to thier customers...
I'm wondering how you could tell they were the scammer if these were going to random addresses?
Now I'm wondering if it was credit card #'s, or how they were naming thier accounts or something. I'm looking to start selling on etsy soon.
So Etsy admit sellers with stolen credit card numbers. That’s a big fail.
Can't you reach out the costumers and ask how much they paid before sending future products?
Tu Jose big platforms have ugly dirty business practices.
Skip to 2:25 to avoid preamble
Ummmm just my 3¢.... I believe that kinda stuff us going on.. BUT... Just doesn't make sense they would go threw all that to sell and item at a discounted price just to make that lesser amount on a sale. Like they could just as easily copy your product pages and just basically drop ship the item for real buyers and what i would believe to be legally done as opposed to just useing stolen credit cads, making fake sales, and desputing purchases?!?.
They keep making new shops under different names and uploading the same listings and undercutting me, I keep getting scam orders as well how can I stop this??
There is something that doesn't kind of click in place for me. In the last video you mentioned you were getting the orders from the exact same guy. I think, if they are using triangulation, the addresses of each of the orders have to be different. However you could identify the scammer because of the repeated orders, pointing to the same account.
Sometimes with triangulation, they order many times to ensure the buyer gets the order. I did find out from someone that she did originally order a sign she thought was from me, but it wasn’t, it was from a scam shop. Regardless of the scam, they did it many times on my shop under different hacked accounts. I’m still not fully sure what happened, but it has stopped for now which I’m glad.
According to you the scammers delete the fake accounts on Etsy. That means Etsy has all that information, because nothing ever ever gets really deleted from the service provider and if the scammers can do that then this platform has much more serious issues to deal with. So they have records and will have them for a substantial amount of time, because even if you request to delete your account they have the right to keep the info for some time so they can provide it to the police in case of criminal activity. So they have a lot of data, IPs, MAC addresses and a lot of information to know this is going on. So basically Etsy may have been doing a sloppy job there or this in such a small scale they don't have to worry to much about. I am just really sorry this happened to you.
Sorry this happened to you and everyone else. I really still don’t understand what happened but listen these criminals will find a way to
Why can’t You get a person on Etsy for help?
This is so stressful.
What I'm trying to understand is if they used a different Etsy account each time how do you know it's the scammer and cancel their order.
starts here 2:18
Sorry you had to deal with this. I’m curious how you knew which orders to cancel?
They keep ordering the same exact name sign and same address every order! It’s come in several times since this video so I just cancel them still.
Tells me etsy is epically incompetent. Need to verify buyer accounts
So sad people scam the small businesses.
I am so sorry this is happening to you!
Thank you- it’s ok! I just want to bring awareness for others who may be experiencing it! It seems like an issue that’s getting big over the last year.
Did this affect your shop’s rating, or did your business suffer in any way because of the multiple scams?
That’s a lot of scamming work¡ for a scammer.
Damn that’s confusing. How do these people come up with this crazy stuff?
There were scams on Walmart. They told me they took them off their site